More news today, and a FOTP:So, browsing digg.com and I noticed an article about a programming language called KPL, which stands for Kids Programming Language. This will allow even the most novice programmer be able to pick up an IDE and just start writing readable code that can do things such as manipulate sprites, and 3D applications in 100 lines or less! I’ve dev’ed in Java before, and this is an amazing feat. Currently KPL is only in version 1, and version 2 is only in alpha, but it is roughly 10 times faster for certain executions. This looks very promising for high schools in the future. The whole idea behind the project was to make programming an almost instantaneous gratifying experience, and I think that goal has been met. 

In other news, yesterday Apple announced a Video iPod with a 4” screen. Supposedly it will sport a touch screen and movies will be able to be purchased from iTunes. One more thing for the MPAA to gripe about, yay…

As for WoW ever making its debut on the Xbox 360, it looks as if that is not going to happen.

“We do not have any plans to take WoW to Xbox 360,” Blizzard COO Paul Sams told MCV. “WoW is built as a PC gaming experience. Porting PC games to console often compromises games, and we’d never allow the WoW gameplay experience to suffer.”

That’s ok, I suppose, I couldn’t really see how World of Warcraft gameplay would be a whole lot of fun on the Xbox anyways, but what do I know.And finally, today the Catholic Church just got a little bit more classical, as in classical music. Pope Benedict XVI got an iPod on Friday. 

FOTP: TagWorld.com “Think MySpace, on fire, going 150 MPH though a school zone, being chased by ninjas.” (Thanks Bungie)

I haven’t personally signed up for a TagWorld account yet, but the Web 2.0 App looks freakin’ cool. Drag and drop interface, and so much more customizability than MySpace, but yet organization that doesn’t leave you searching the page for the person’s info. PLUS VERYTHING IS TAGGED. This makes searching so easy. If you have a social life, dump MySpace and get to TagWorld

-Tom

“Hype is the awkward and desperate attempt to convince journalists that what you’ve made is worth the misery of having to review it.” -Federico Fellini

Well, two days ago, Apple had a press conference to show off the new products. Lots of hype was circling the convention, and Apple flew people in from many parts of the country just to see these ‘new’ products. Images surfaced on the internet about 2 weeks ago that were supposedly leaked from the Apple factory showing a full sized iPod video. Later then, a video showing someone creating the ‘image’ with photography and Photoshop. However, there were discrepancies between the actual image and the image in the video, so this gave new hope to the image actually being a leak. Then the day before the Apple announcement, AOTS admitted to creating the video of the faked image, and I believe the original also… “Way too meta…”

Well, the new products Apple did actually announce included the iPod HiFi, and the Leather iPod Case, and I suppose most importantly the Intel iMac and Intel Mac mini. For me, these didn’t really live up to the hype (that was mostly created by rumors). Besides, Apple’s jump into the iPod accessories market is about 3 years too late, and the products that were introduced, IMO are overpriced and not original.

As of today however, Apple has filed for a wide laptop touchpad patent from the US Patent office, Apple has a way of filing for patents that have anything to do with touch or interface. All we can hope for is a touchable iPod…

And for the last bit of Apple news the Mac II computer is 19 years old today. You could buy one of these in 1987 for $5,498 (1 MB of RAM, a floppy drive, and a 40MB SCSI hard disk).

FOTP: Digg.com and Wikipedia.org

Digg: “If you like tech news, you’ll love Digg.com”

Digg was created as an experiment in November 2004 by Kevin Rose, Owen Byrne, Ron Gorodetzky, and Jay Adelson (who serves as CEO), all of whom play an active role in the management of the site. This site is a where members choose what news stories belong on the front page by “Digg”ing a story. The more diggs, the story will stay on the front page.

Wikipedia: “The Encyclopedia for the Internet, if you haven’t used it, you need to.”

If you can think it, it’s probably on here (Example: Digg). This is the definition of Wikipedia, from Wikipedia, hence all of the links. Wikipedia is a multilingualWeb-based free-contentencyclopedia. It exists as a wiki, written collaboratively by volunteers, allowing most articles to be changed by anyone with access to a web browser and an Internet connection.

-Tom